Evaluating the performance of a Telerobotic system employing model predictive control techniques

ABSTRACT Controlling robots over long distances is an important issue in robotics technology and teleoperations. In a teleoperation system the controller provides accurate transmission between master and slave manipulators. For a distant transmission, time delay and loss of data are common problems, making teleoperation systems unstable and unreliable. Due to existing vulnerabilities in web-based system, security in different robotic applications is an important issue and differing levels of security measures may be considered. This research present an approach to set up teleoperation systems with long distance communication channels like Internet via Model Predictive Control (MPC) techniques. The modified MPC scheme with a novel method of creating and transmitting the batch files for executing the commands in the server is investigated via a case study. Experimental results are used to verify the robustness of the approach in terms of tracking behavior with both variations of time-delays and packet losses in the communication network. For the experimentation, the communication network is Internet using UDP protocol while the slave robots are 6 Degrees of Freedom anthropomorphic robots with force sensors. The experiments are conducted between two remote sites of a distance 6000 km. ABSTRAK Pengawalan robot, dalam jangka masa panjang merupakan satu isu penting dalam bidang teknologi robot dan teleoperasi. Dalam sistem teleoperasi, pengawal memberi transimasi yang tepat di antara 'master' dan pemanipulasi 'slave' Untuk transimasi jarak jauh,kelewatan dan kehilangan data merupakan masalah yang berlaku kerap kali yang menyebabkan sistem teleoperasi menjadi tidak stabil dan datanya kurang sah. Ciri ciri ini menyebabkan sekuriti dalam aplikasi robotik menjadi isu penting dan tahap sekuriti yang berbeza haruslah dipertimbangkan. Kajian ini mengkaji satu pendekatan sistem teleoperasi yang menggunakan saluran komunikasi jarak jauh seperti Internet melalui teknik Model Predictive Control (MPC) Skema MPC yang telah diubahsuai dengan kaedah mencipta dan menyalurkan data fail untuk melaksanakan arahan dalam server telah dikaji melalui kajian kes. Keputusan eksperimen telah digunakan untuk sahkan keberkesanan pendekatan ini tanpa mengabaikan kedua dua variasi iaitu kelewatan dan kehilangan data dalam jaring komunikasi. Untuk tujuan eksperimen, jaring komunikasi ialah Internet yang menggunakan protokol UDP manakala robot 'slaves' yang digunakan ialah jenis '6 Degrees of Freedom anthropomorphic' yang mempunyai 'force sensors'. Eksperimen ini dijalankan di antara dua lokasi dengan jarak 6000 km.

[1]  Jean-Jacques E. Slotine,et al.  Towards force-reflecting teleoperation over the Internet , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146).

[2]  M.W. Spong,et al.  Model predictive control for bilateral teleoperation systems with time delays , 2004, Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering 2004 (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37513).

[3]  O. Bebek,et al.  Model Based Control Algorithms for Robotic Assisted Beating Heart Surgery , 2006, 2006 International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[4]  Frank Allgöwer,et al.  Nonlinear Model Predictive Control , 2007 .

[5]  Jin-woo Park,et al.  Transmission modeling and simulation for Internet-based control , 2001, IECON'01. 27th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (Cat. No.37243).

[6]  T. Slama,et al.  Experiments results on robustness effects of a new prefilter in generalized predictive control: Application to bilateral teleoperation systems , 2008, 2008 10th IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Motion Control.

[7]  T. Slama,et al.  Robust bilateral generalized predictive control for teleoperation systems , 2007, 2007 Mediterranean Conference on Control & Automation.

[8]  Jong-Hwan Kim,et al.  Implementation of Internet-based personal robot with Internet control architecture , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[9]  C. R. Cutler,et al.  Dynamic matrix control¿A computer control algorithm , 1979 .

[10]  Sirish L. Shah,et al.  Generalized predictive control for non-uniformly sampled systems , 2002 .

[11]  Peter Xiaoping Liu,et al.  Control and data transmission for Internet robots , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.03CH37422).

[12]  Mark W. Spong,et al.  Discrete time passivity in bilateral teleoperation over the Internet , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[13]  Ken Taylor,et al.  Internet robots: a new robotics niche , 2000, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag..

[14]  Ning Xi,et al.  Planning and control of Internet-based teleoperation , 1998, Other Conferences.

[15]  Roberto Oboe.  Web-interfaced, force-reflecting teleoperation systems , 2001, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[16]  Bruce A. Francis,et al.  Bilateral controller for teleoperators with time delay via μ-synthesis , 1995, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[17]  Mark W. Spong,et al.  Bilateral teleoperation: An historical survey , 2006, Autom..

[18]  Jae Wook Jeon,et al.  A Distance Learning System for Robotics , 2007, International Conference on Computational Science.

[19]  Mark W. Spong,et al.  Bilateral control of teleoperators with time delay , 1989 .

[20]  Jahng-Hyon Park,et al.  Real time bilateral control for Internet based telerobotic system , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003) (Cat. No.03CH37453).

[21]  Shuang-Hua Yang,et al.  Controlling an Internet‐enabled arm robot in an open control laboratory , 2004 .

[22]  Teng Fei,et al.  Modeling and real time control of Internet-distributed control system , 2002, IEEE 2002 28th Annual Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society. IECON 02.

[23]  Paolo Fiorini,et al.  Internet-based telerobotics: problems and approaches , 1997, 1997 8th International Conference on Advanced Robotics. Proceedings. ICAR'97.

[24]  Zoe Doulgeri,et al.  A web telerobotic system to teach industrial robot path planning and control , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Education.

[25]  Katsuhiko Ogata,et al.  Modern Control Engineering , 1970 .

[26]  J. Richalet,et al.  Model predictive heuristic control: Applications to industrial processes , 1978, Autom..